Hey, hipsters. Amazon has 'space' for 450 new R&D roles in Shoreditch

Mass recruitment

Amazon today announced it plans to "double" its R&D roles in the UK capital. However, it won't say when all of the new roles will be recruited.

Amazon, like Google and Microsoft, has been recruiting in London. CEO Jeff Bezos announced earlier this year that his biz hopes to create 5,000 jobs in the UK by 2017's end, increasing the count of permanent employees to 24,000.

According to today's announcement, Amazon now has a 600,000sq ft, 15-storey UK headquarters in Shoreditch, London. Three floors will be dedicated for expanding its existing 450-or-so-strong R&D team at the London Development Centre near Bank Station, which works on the global Prime Video service.

An Amazon spokesman confirmed to The Register that there will indeed be enough elbow room in these three floors of the new Amazon HQ to accommodate an additional 450 roles on top of the existing 450. The new dev centre will have teams for software engineers, UI experts, data analysts and graphic designers.

The spokesman said that Amazon is "not putting a timeline" on recruitment for these roles, which are not part of its existing 5,000 goal for the year. ®